Probably some forum members have already noticed a few of my posts regarding vintage lenses.
I love them, both because of the way they are made and how they look, and also because they often give the kind of images that you won't get from modern lenses.
Don't get me wrong, far from saying that vintage lenses are better, I just like to have the chance to choose.
Some very good - and usually expensive - old primes can be sharper than some modern zooms, but this is not the point.
What attracts me is the imperfection, for example undercorrected spherical aberration, which makes bokeh so nice, and transition between different planes so smooth. Even the lack of multicoating, and the reduced contrast, can be preferable if we look for rich gray tones in a B/W conversion.
Maybe I'm influenced by my collector's alter ego, and I'm fabricating some rational reason to like them

What I do know is that I have a growing interest for very old lenses made in the fifties and sixties.
I am going to post a few images, the very first test of a new (to me) Steinheil Culmigon f/4.5 35mm, to let you decide if it's worth shooting with such antiques, or if it's not really any better (in any possible way) than a cheap standard zoom.
All the pictures were shot with a K-01, handheld, using a short extension tube.
The first one is shot at f/11, and of course has more DOF.
The other two were shot wide open (f/4.5), focusing on either the stamens or the pistils. Having all of them in focus was not possible, because of the very short distance.
I should have left more background in the picture to better assess bokeh quality.
Next time...
My personal opinion? I am amazed by the decent level of sharpness, even at such extremes (MFD + tube, wide open). The lens is a 4E/4G, very asymmetric in design, and in theory should suffer a considerable degradation if used at such short distance without reversing the objective.
What's your impression?
If you want to better assess the quality, right click on the picture and choose "open in new tab". There you can left click to go to 100%.
Last edited by cyberjunkie; 12-17-2018 at 08:50 AM.